Bring me back to you
by Iceinherheart
Summary: Secrets where all a part of being in S.H.I.E.L.D. They'd agreed to that before they'd even started working for them. That didn't mean he had to like it.
1. It's a big ask

Coulson and May had approached him the moment that Jemma had left the room, they stood side by side, Coulson in his black suit and May in her black body suit. The mission had been top, _top_ secret and they hadn't told him a thing until they'd sworn him to secrecy. A mission to the middle of proverbial nowhere, alone - him, little Leo Fitz, with only the creations he had made with his bare hands to keep him safe. But he'd agreed to it before they'd told him the real clincher.

"Simmons can never know." May added as he shook Coulson's hand, and he'd stopped instantly, staring at her closely, silently wishing that he'd imagined the words.

"Come again?" He asked, tilting his head at the pair of them and blinking his eyes at Coulson, half expecting him to contradict her. He didn't.

"Obviously." Coulson nodded. "It's a top secret mission Fitz; she can't have any information about what's happening. On orders from up high." He added, a sympathetic look covering the familiar features. He straightened his tie professionally. "And we'd hate for her involvement in all this to get her hurt, now wouldn't we?" Damn. Damn him to hell for his extensive knowledge of just how important his partner was to Fitz.

"Yeah, suppose." Fitz shrugged, pulling up the years of pretend nonchalance he had tucked under his belt to keep his face clear in front of _the big boss_ and _the cavalry. _He'd kept it up in front of some of the most important people in his life; it made no sense of why he shouldn't have been able to do it in front of them, even if they _where_ super spies. "But, uh, how exactly are we going to do that? We've practically been stuck together for the last nine years, I'd like to think that she'd notice if I just up and left. Hopefully." Coulson looked uncomfortable as he shuffled his feet slightly, and even the famous Melinda May managed to look slightly awkward.

"Um, about that." Coulson said uncomfortably, fiddling with his tie again. "We have an idea for that, but... Well I'm afraid you're not going to like it."

* * *

"Let's do this." Ward clapped his hands together as he slammed the door, talking to the quiet as the younger agents (and the non-agent) slipped out of the back seats; the quite was a rare occurrence. Skye had already been told twice to shut up by Ward and had zipped her lips before he began to threaten her and Jemma had shut up the moment they had driven up on to the ridiculously high bridge they were on, her face paling. Heights were affecting her less and less, but a bridge this high... it was enough to make even him queasy. And Fitz himself was far too busy panicking about what was about to happen to start a friendly argument with his beat friends about anything. So the team walked in silence towards their designated zones, designated by Coulson of course, with Coulson, Ward and May shooting the odd worried glance at him whenever they could get away with it.

"Simmons! Look at this!" Coulson called over from the other side of the lot, and she trotted over to him, pulling her loose curls back into a ponytail when she set down her case. He followed her over, half running on instinct to stay as close to her as possible, half running on the pointers Coulson had given him before they'd set out. _Be normal,_ he'd told him as he touched a comforting hand to his shoulder, _you can't let her think that anything's wrong. Just... stay near her._ He shook his head at the memory - what had Coulson expected? For him to just... desert her?

Out the corner of his eyes he saw May give him a small nod. Ready or not Fitz, here it comes.

"Hey Fitz!" May called back to him, "What's this?" May was over by the SUV again, too far for Jemma to run if it she deemed it was needed. With a deep breath in, he reached out and touched her shoulder where she was crouched at his side, opening her case. She smiled up at him.

"I'll only be a minute." He offered her a small smile in return and tightened his grip on her shoulder in comfort and she nodded, turning her head to press her chin down gently on the back of his hand affectionately, her hands too full of gunk to return the squeeze. He winced as he turned, letting her go, not believing that she'd brought it. He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You ready, Fitz?" May asked as he dropped down to kneel beside her.

"As I'll ever be." He nodded. She turned to stare at him, in that over analysing way that only agent May was capable of creating.

"What's wrong?"

"I told her I'd be back in a minute." He huffed unhappily, casting a worried glance back at the other half of his duo unhappily.

"Did she buy it?" May asked, seemingly unconcerned.

"Yeah. I'm a better liar than she is, at the least." He sighed, fiddling with the walkie-talkie May had handed him to make it appear like he was at least doing something, if Skye or Jemma where to turn around. "I just... I don't think I've ever lied to her as much as I have in these past few days." May placed a hand on the sleeve of his shirt comfortingly, her lips firmly shut and he shrugged her off.

"It's for her own good, Fitz." She reminded him instead and he rolled his eyes when she couldn't see, pulling the back off the walkie-talkie to give his hands something to do.

"Yeah I know." He grumbled, glancing back to Jemma. "You don't have to remind me."

He stayed knelt down when his watch hit twelve past, despite May's departure. Any second now, he realised as he buried himself deeper in the insides of his walkie-talkie, it'll start any second now. Glancing behind him, he realise Ward was leading Jemma further away from him and that she was looking back at him. She beamed at him when she met his gaze, and he had to remind himself to smile back. _Focus Leo, either don't let her see anything's wrong, or don't look at her, is it really that hard? _

"COULSON!" Skye hollered from where Ward and Jemma were walking away from. She was pointing behind him, yet Fitz knew exactly what she was pointing at. The three teams of (obviously) unarmed men, as unarmed as Ward, Coulson and May where, all in black bundled out of black vans, parked in the near edge of the bridge. A handful took Coulson down easily, and another team kept Ward and May busy while Jemma and Skye hid themselves behind one of the parked cars on the bridge. The last group made a beeline straight for him.

"Fitz!" Jemma shouted at him, and he turned to sprint towards her, yelling her own name back at her. She jumped up from her hiding place and began towards him, her lab coat catching the wind and pulling her back and slowing her down. And her eyes went wide as someone, who was clearly faster than he would ever be, seized him by the shoulders and hauled him back. "Fitz!"

He put up a fight with his 'assailant' as Ward broke away from his own fight to charge toward Fitz and his attacker, pushing Jemma back as he passed her.

"Simmons! Stay back!" He told her fiercely as her paced, seconds before he took a blow straight to the chin and fell to his knees, taking the new aggressor down with him. And suddenly a thin, sharp object pierced the skin at the side of Fitz' neck, one thing that he hadn't been expecting, only to disappear into a puddle of shattered glass on the concrete by the time he'd brought a hand up to touch the mark it left. Slowly, very slowly, sound faded and colours blurred. It reminded him slightly of the night they'd finished their exams; the headache was in a completely different place, he'd never felt this parched before, even after an extensive night of booze and he'd never stumbled that much when he was drunk. Really, the only thing that was a constant between all those years ago and now, was that he lost consciousness with the same brilliant young Brit hollering his name as his head hit that pavement.

_"Leo!"_

* * *

Ha! First AoS multi-chapter fic! Yes you heard me, Multi-Chapter! The lack of 'complete' icon at the top was intentional this time!  
All but the last chapter of this is done (and it's going to be so goddamn big that's why!) But I'm not actually sure when I'm going to be able to update. Sorry about that if you actually wanted an update!  
Oh and thanks to my darling Jenny, for helping me get this started in the first place!

IIHH Xxx


	2. Separated

Waking up had never been so painful. Fitz ended up blaming it on the force hid head had hit the floor with combined with whatever they'd injected him with. If they'd shot him full of Jemma's dendrotoxin, he vowed to hit them with the heaviest object in the lab. Eventually the dark room came into focus, and he pushed up onto his forearms to look around at where the hell he was, until he was pushed back down onto his stomach by a hand on his shoulder.

"Easy, Fitz." The owner of the hand spoke up and he nodded, dropping his forehead down onto his arm to increase the blood flow to his brain, hoping it would clear it of the cotton wool that was filling it. When he eventually managed to sit up properly without his head spinning, he clasped a hand to his aching neck, where the needle had pierced the muscle. The overly muscular bloke with him pulled him to his feet. "Up you get."

"Oh for god sake, what did you have your men stab me with, Ward?" He growled pushing down on his neck to stop they ache. Ward pulled a tube out if his pocket and pushed it into his hands. "Here. This may help." Fitz took the cream from him and twisted it in his fingertips, reading the label.

"Is this-?" He asked as he raised an eyebrow, "Is this Simmons'?" He finished, dabbing the sparkling green gel onto the torn flesh that he didn't need Ward's conformation to know that his partner had made it.

"Yeah. I nicked it from the lab before we left, thought you might have needed it." Ward told him, pulling a wad of fabric from the bag at his side and dumped it in his co-workers arms. It turned out to be a change of cloths, all snatched from Fitz's bunk on the BUS, even including one of his beloved ties, a light red with white spots. This one just happened to be one of the many Jemma had brought for him, and the one he'd worn when she'd been locked in their lab. He flung it back at Ward.

"How is she?" He queried when he finally got Ward to turn his back, only after a incredibly long arguments revolving around the words "We're both guys, Fitz, it hardly matters." and "I've seen you change before, Fitz." And "I don't care, turn around!" Ward turned around and, at the hard eyed glare, he turned around again.

"Are you sure there's nothing else you want to ask about _first_?" He huffed, folding his arms across his chest. "Is there nothing more important – oh, about the mission perhaps? – that's more important than Simmons' reaction to you being fake kidnapped?" The Engineer turned around, dark blue shirt (Yet another reason why he'd given his tie back) half button, curls mused and a terribly vicious glare in place.

"You've drugged me - against the plan, I'd like to add –dropped me off to do this alone and I'm having to lie to my friends so that SHEILD can do what ever the hell it is that they need me to do this for, and now I'm not even allowed to ask if my best friend is okay. Seems a little off, don't you think, Agent Ward?" He growled, crossing his arms across his chest, the same way Ward had his in the same moment.

"Fine!" The specialist growled, dropping his hands again. "She's okay. Not injured. A little upset. Now, what. About. The. Mission?"

"Alright!" Fitz snarled, slipping his hands onto his hips. "Given the specs Coulson gave me the other day, shouldn't be too hard to fix this bloody thing… If I can work out how to find the sodding thing."

"Good!" Ward nodded, and is eyes flicked down. "You might wanna… ya know… buttons." Fitz clasped a hand over the expanse of exposed skin below the column of his throat. He quickly began to fumble to push the button through each corresponding hole.

"Ah, shut up, Ward!" He growled.

"I've got to go, before Skye or Simmons realises that I'm gone." The older agent told him with a small nod and a frown. "Sorry Fitz. I'll be back for you soon." He turned, and the shadowy room engulfed him, doors opened and closed, and suddenly the gloomy dark was the only comfort in an even darker world.

And Leopold Fitz was left completely alone.

* * *

Skye had forced her into the shower almost literally, and the warm water had loosened the muscles in her back and washed the dirt from her hair and skin. Once the hackervist had pulled her back out and wrapped her in one of the warm, fluffy towels that they kept on the radiators for crisis such as these. May had made her tea, Coulson handed her and Skye a large bar of chocolate to share between them, and half way through the night, once Skye had brushed her hair and set on a film on the big television in the communal area, Ward had appeared and wrapped her in a large fluffy blanket.

She refused to return to their lab. She refused to acknowledge the team as they milled around the BUS, completing the mission they now had to finish after it became personal, unless they spoke to her. She refused to move, refused to eat, refused to sleep.

Fitz was gone. Her Fitz had been taken.

Kidnapped.

After nine years of being stuck together, hip to hip, brain to brain, she'd left him for five minuets to be on the other side of a bloody bridge and they'd snatched him up from under her nose, in front of her eyes. They'd stuck a needle in his throat and hulled him away while she screamed, May's thin, strong arms gripping around her waist as she tried her hardest to get to the darkly dressed men and women who dragged her partner away from her and into one of their black vans as Ward gave chase. He returned alone.

She didn't talk, didn't cry, she didn't even move. She couldn't.

It took her ages, nearly hours, to realise why her body had suddenly refused to respond. When her nerve endings finally switched from numb to overdrive, the urge to throw up was frightfully strong. She whimpered, convulsing forward to clutch her stomach as Skye reached over from her end of the sofa to slip an arm around her.

"Simmons?" She asked, tugging her into a tight hug. "Is everything okay?"

"No," The biochemist sobbed into her friends shoulder, her arms clutching and her voice raw from disuse. "It… Oh, God Skye, it hurts!" She gave in; sobbing into the dark hair that she wished was shorter, lighter and curlier.

"I know it does, Simmons. But we'll get him back, don't you doubt that for a second. Fitz will be back with you in that Lab before you can mumble any of that random science talk of yours." Came the gentle reply into her blazer.

"I know." She whispered, "I just feel…"

"Scared, I know. It's understandable."

And Jemma sobbed harder; the word _alone _rang in her head, and she knew that it echoed in her partner's, where ever he was. For the first time in years, one of Jemma Simmons' sentences went unfinished.


End file.
